Lululemon Seawheeze Half Marathon is one of my favorite courses/races/experiences in running. This year was my second time coming back for lulu’s big race and their third year hosting it. It is amazing. I am a lulu fan and everything about this race was top-notch.

The Pro’s:

They send you a pair of lulu shorts to train in (who doesn’t love free shorts!)

The course is amazing- it runs along the Seawall in Vancouver. So lovely.

The swag at the end is amazing (lulu hat and lulu waterbottle) and cold towels and plenty of water is there

Costumed characters throughout the course- it feels like you’re in a dream

Perfect weather

The Con’s:

So congested getting to your corral- I almost missed gettingto my corral in time to start

The expo store had NO CLOTHES in any normal people sizes after 4 hours of being open (evidently everyone was buying and selling on eBay. Lame.)

The finish celebration was pretty congested- we opted out of celebrating because all of the lines were so long

My medal + my cuz, Alyssa.

This race was great last year- but it was even better coming back this year, trained and in shape to run it. Such a great course and my goal was another PR in the half (that was the only birthday present I wanted) and I was happy that I was able to pull it off on this course.

Our hotel was just down the street from the start (we stayed at the Hyatt this year and last year we stayed at the Renaissance Harbourside, which was literally RIGHT on the start line). A typical race morning for me is waking up as LATE as humanly possible while still having enough time to get into my corral on time. It's an art (read: stressful and sometimes works out better than other times.) And we ended up not having enough time to get to the start line. So, as usual, I was bobbing and weaving through the crowd to get up to the first corral. With three minutes to go, the 2:30 pace group was far in the distance, so you know I covered a lot of ground quick. Once I got to the first corral, I stretched quickly (my race stretch consists of doing one or two squats) and then was ready to go. I ate my pack of Watermelon Sports Beans while the Canadian anthem was being sung (sorry, Canada – no disrespect intended).

The gun went off and I tried to get in a rhythm quickly for the race. Luckily my race pace of 7:15 didn’t feel too painful. I had an A race goal of 7:10 pace – but didn’t want to blow out too fast. This race is amazing because the course is gorgeous and lululemon has quirky volunteers along the course dressed up in strange costumes that make the experience more enjoyable. I clipped along at this pace and came to the bridge/mountain at mile 6 and was able to still stay on pace, and climbing up it and then having to do it all again at the end of the mile was the toughest part of the course. With that behind me, I was just trying to hold onto my pace and make it to the end.

We ran along the Seawall this whole time and around mile 9, it turned a corner and it was directly in the sun. TOUGH. The finish line came soon enough and with it came a new PR of 1:35:51. Super excited to get this since I wasn’t sure what untapered legs (with a 20 miler the weekend before) could do. The finish line was amazing and I even got to see someone propose to their fiancé there (just my two cents, not THE most original proposal idea- but much better than the guy who held up a sign during the Mountains 2 Beach marathon proposing to his fiancé running the race, at mile 19. Like c’mon- you couldn’t wait until the end?!)

Getting to see my girls come in and celebrate with them the rest of the day made this the perfect birthday race. There is a reason that Seawheeze 2015 sold out in 4 minutes this year. This race is magical.

Did any of you sign up for Seawheeze for 2015? Hope to see you there! If not, put Seawheeze 2016 on your list of things to do...